“Wishing you the best of luck,” Sophomore Carli Romeo shouted at a cup with a fish before dipping it in the waters at the Saranac Lake Fish and Game Club.

The students in NCCC professor Brian McAllister’s environmental science class raised these 82 salmon fry from eggs throughout this past semester, and said they were capping off their year — or their degree — in a great way.

First-year student Alexis Hy said it was an emotional moment. They had raised these fish and seen them progress from eggs to alevins — where they still carry a bit of their embryonic yolk sac to feed on the fluid — to the fry stage they’re currently at.

Students documented the temperature of the water and fed the small fish as they ditched their yolk sacs and started life on their own.

North Country Community College Sophomore Janay Chism releases baby salmon into the Saranac River on Wednesday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

Hy said it was touching to see them hide behind rocks before eventually gaining confidence to swim against the current.

The students were proud of the low mortality rate the fish had. Out of 100 eggs they got from the state Department of Environmental Conservation’s Adirondack Fish Hatchery in Lake Clear, they released 82 on Wednesday.

McAllister said a salmon lays 1,000 eggs in the hopes that one survives.

Sophomore Janay Chism said they had to remove the dead ones themselves.

Romeo said it was interesting seeing why the ones that died didn’t make it — having curved tails or other abnormalities.

North Country Community College Sophomore Carli Romeo speaks to baby salmon before releasing them into the Saranac River on Wednesday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

“We gave them the best chance at life that they could have had up until this point,” Romeo said. “So now it’s just natural selection.”

The salmon will spend two years in the Saranac River, feeding and growing to the smolt stage. They will hang out between the Lake Flower Dam — upstream from where they were released — and the downstream Franklin Falls Dam. Then, they will migrate down to Lake Champlain.

Many of the fish released will not live to adulthood — they will be eaten by birds or other fish, be killed in hydroelectric dam turbines or suffer other fatalities. For the ones who make it, they will feed on smelt in the lake and grow to an average size of 5 pounds. After a few years, they will return to the Saranac River one fall to spawn.

NCCC environmental science professor Mindy Fredenburg started the annual salmon-rearing project two years ago with support from the nonprofits Lake Champlain Basin Program and Trout Unlimited. Fredenburg thanked the Saranac Lake Fish and Game Club for letting them access the river at the nonprofit’s property.

The NCCC students gave the salmon words of encouragement and advice as they sent their fish on their journeys — “You can do it,” “Eat good” and “Don’t buy NFTs.”

North Country Community College Sophomore Nate Keaney releases baby salmon into the Saranac River on Wednesday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)

North Country Community College Sophomore Janay Chism shows off a cup of baby salmon before releasing them into the Saranac River on Wednesday. (Enterprise photo — Aaron Marbone)